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The Power Gap an Index of Everyday Power in Britain

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The Power Gap an Index of Everyday Power in Britain the power gap an index of everyday power in Britain DANIEL LEIGHTON Open access. Some rights reserved. As the publisher of this work, Demos wants to encourage the circulation of our work as widely as possible while retaining the copyright. We therefore have an open access policy which enables anyone to access our content online without charge. Anyone can download, save, perform or distribute this work in any format, including translation, without written permission. This is subject to the terms of the Demos licence found at the back of this publication. Its main conditions are: · Demos and the author(s) are credited · This summary and the address www.demos.co.uk are displayed · The text is not altered and is used in full · The work is not resold · A copy of the work or link to its use online is sent to Demos You are welcome to ask for permission to use this work for purposes other than those covered by the licence. Demos gratefully acknowledges the work of Creative Commons in inspiring our approach to copyright. To find out more go to www.creativecommons.org 2 contents Acknowledgements 4 Summary 5 Introduction 10 1 Defining power and powerlessness 14 2 Measuring power as capability 27 3 The Power Map 37 4 The power scores 42 5 Power Map constituency rankings 54 Appendix 65 Notes 73 References 76 3 acknowledgements There are a number of people and organisations that contributed to this research project and report. I would like to thank the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for their generous generous funding of this project. Particular thanks are also due to Rohit Lekhi and Ricardo Blaug of Research Republic for their ongoing creative input and advice on methodological issues. At Demos, I am grateful to Richard Reeves for his comments on earlier drafts; to Simon Hampson for his work on the earlier phases of the project; to Giulia Gramola, Maryem Haddaoui and Sarah Kennedy for their invaluable research support; and to Peter Harrington, Beatrice Burks and Claire Coulier for their work on the events associated with the project, publication and press. Daniel Leighton, December 2009 4 summary Power is the political currency of the day. All three party leaders now extol the importance of ‘giving power away’, devolving power and empowering people. As Cabinet Office Minister Liam Byrne recently put it: ‘the debate about power and how we create a country of “powerful people” is the real question in modern politics’.1 David Cameron has pledged a ‘massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power’.2 Nick Clegg has written that ‘liberalism’s starting point is the fairer dispersal and distribution of power’.3 The animating ideal of this report is that people should have power over their own lives, and the power to shape the society in which they live. But power is unevenly distributed. Britain is divided between those with the financial, educational and political resources to exercise power, and those without. There is a good deal of attention paid to gaps in income, wealth, opportunity and health. Put together, these amount to a gap in power. There are in Britain not one, but ‘two nations’: the powerful and powerless. League tables of the ‘Most Powerful’ feature regu- larly in the media: the most powerful people in politics; the most powerful gay people, or Asian women, or in business. There is, it seems, an almost insatiable interest in the power elite. But questions of power and powerlessness are not restricted to the gilded few. Powerlessness disfigures our nation, and weakens our society. This report and accompanying Power Map (see page 36) measure and map powerfulness and powerlessness in Britain according to parliamentary constituency. The Demos power index will be an open resource for others to undertake their own investigations into the dimensions and distribution of power. Although the range of indicators contained within the index is extensive, it is not exhaustive. A key aim of the research is to inspire others to challenge our definition of power in order to improve collective understanding. 5 summary What makes a person powerful? There are three key elements in human power: the power to shape one’s own life; the power to be resilient in the face of shocks and the arbitrary power of others; and the power to shape the social world. These three elements make up the core power capabilities that are measured throughout the power index. The Power Map — based on the index — illustrates the distribution of eight different indicators of citizens’ power gathered into one overall index (for the detailed methodology see pp22-30). The eight power indicators are: • education • occupational status • income • employment • freedom from crime • health • voter turnout • marginality of parliamentary seat A power score is given for each constituency in England, Scotland and Wales. The score is the un-weighted sum of the eight indicators, with a maximum power score of 100. There is also an England power index, which includes three additional factors, for which data only exists in England: perceptions of local influence, a sense of local belonging, and rates of volunteering. The Power Map depicts the differences in levels of personal power by parliamentary constituency in England, Wales and Scotland. The map provides an overview of the power held by individual citizens. This understanding of power takes in both the power that one has to decide how one’s own life will go, as well as power to have a voice in shaping the wider social world. The key concern is people’s power to be in control of their own lives. Mapping Power The map illustrates the distribution of power with five bands, ranging from very high to very low levels of power for the people living within each of Britain’s 628 constituencies. Table 1 shows the power scores captured within each band, and the number of constituencies in each band. There will of course be variation within constituencies, but the aggregate 6 summary scores show clear patterns that dramatise the power gap, especially between the top and the bottom bands (with 68 and 23 constituencies, respectively). Table 1 Constituency power scores by band Band 5 Very low 4 Low 3 Medium 2 High 1 Very high Power score 20–30% 30–40% 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% No of 23 116 201 220 68 constituencies The power map shows where the most powerful and powerless citizens live; what factors make them score higher; disparities across and within regions; and which political parties represent the powerless and powerful. Headline findings include: • The Power Gap: The overall distribution of scores shows a very steep differential, or power gap, at the bottom and the top of the index. Those at the bottom, living in what are, relatively speaking, power deserts, have low overall control over their lives. But those at the very top possess very much more power than not only the least powerful, but also the majority of constituencies that fall in the middle. • Power drains and boosters: the factors that contribute most strongly to draining power away from the low-power areas, and also boosting constituencies up to the top of the power scale, are education, occupational status and political power in the form of seat marginality and voter turnout. Education, workplace power and political power are therefore important areas of focus in terms of moving towards more egalitarian power distribution. • Regions: There is uneven distribution of high power scores in the South East compared with the rest of the UK. The majority of high-scoring constituencies are in the South East, with the home counties figuring particularly strongly at the very top of the first band. However, there are also strong disparities within regions. In contrast, constituencies in the Midlands and North East score consistently in the 7 summary lowest two bands, with three Birmingham constituencies appearing in the bottom ten. • Political parties: the Labour party overwhelmingly repre- sents the most powerless areas. Conservative MPs typically represent the most powerful, although there is also a rela- tively high representation of Lib Dems in the highest-scoring constituencies. There is also a strong relationship between least powerful constituencies and BNP target seats such as Barking, Burnley and Stoke on Trent, all of which score in the low and very low power bands. • Lack of local influence: The key factors that boost power scores are occupation and education. Indeed, there appears to be a negative correlation between perceptions of local influence and overall powerfulness. This suggests that power is about a range of capabilities as much, if not more, as about the encouragement of civic participation at the local level. • Voter power: The disproportionate power given to ‘swing’ voters in marginal constituencies boosts power scores in general. Those living in safe seats that also score poorly in the other categories are subject to a form of double dam- nation: not only do they lack personal control, they also lack meaningful opportunities to change the wider social and political landscape through a real choice at the ballot box. Demos is looking at how to close the power gap across its programmes of work — from capabilities and citizenship to the open left and progressive conservatism projects. At a time when all parties pledge to ‘give power away’, the power gap should frame policy making across a number of areas from democratic reform and pubic health to employee ownership and asset based welfare. The mission of Demos is to discover and communi- cate ideas to give more people more power over their own lives and their own environments, and to close the power gap. At a time when all parties pledge to ‘give power away’, the power gap should frame policy across the board.
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